Meaninglessness & the Vocabulary of Faith

“Pain relief is not the meaning we need. And make no mistake: meaninglessness is a painful epidemic all its own, which requires all the resources that our faith uniquely provides.”

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In my work as Ministry Development Director at PRN, I often meet with church leaders to find out how we can better serve the 26 congregations in our growing church network. In one recent meeting, a pastor described the counseling needs among his congregants, most of which are common to other churches — marital difficulties, depression, anxiety, addiction, etc. At the end of our conversation I asked him, “And are there any newer mental health trends that you’re noticing, compared to say, five years ago?” His answer surprised me. 



“Well, I’ll only tell you because you asked,” he began. “Recently I’ve noticed a vocabulary problem. Our people seem to use only mental health terms to describe their spiritual lives.” 



After getting more clarity about what he meant, I started to ask other regional church leaders if they shared his observation. Sure enough, a pattern emerged in their responses: Christians increasingly use mental health terms like depression, anxiety, trauma, attachment, differentiation, fusion, and personality disorder to describe their inner lives, while using less biblical terminology.


To my mind, there are good and bad things about this development. Let me explain.


First of all, it is good that more Christians are willing to discuss mental health issues in their church communities, because mental illness is very common. The National Alliance on Mental Illness reports that one in five adults in the U.S. experience mental illness each year, and one in twenty experience serious mental illness. The statistics for children, youth, and young adults were similar until 2020, when they got significantly worse. And although many want to turn to their church leaders for support, mental illness is still often stigmatized in the Church, both in the U.S. and around the world. So thank God that many Christians — at least many in the Philadelphia region — feel comfortable bearing one another’s burdens in such a significant area of need!

Secondly, many of our experiences of mental illness reflect biblical phenomena. Several mental health terms listed above are either near-translations of terms in Scripture (Mt. 6:25-34), or fit within biblical categories of human suffering in a sinful, fallen world (Ps 38:3-10). Yes, terms like “depression," “anxiety,” and “trauma” often imply technical meanings conceived in modernity, but they nonetheless denote observable human experiences that Christ intends to minister to using all means of grace during this age, and to fully redeem in the fullness of the Kingdom.

For all of these reasons, I am glad that Christians are using mental health vocabulary more freely within their churches.

So, what’s the concern? 


The concern is not about the presence of newer terms; it’s about the absence of older ones. My pastor friends have noticed that mental health terms are beginning to replace the biblical concepts that authoritatively describe the Christian’s spiritual life — concepts like salvation, faith, sin, judgment, righteousness, forgiveness, repentance, mercy, love, and others. If they are right about this development, I think I can identify at least one significant reason why it is happening:

Mental health often feels supremely relevant, especially during a crisis.

For example, if I experience panic attacks, an evidence-based anxiety intervention may feel more relevant than a covenant-based assurance of God’s care. Think about it. If I was once taught that my symptoms were the result of faithlessness but now experience symptom relief through therapy, I may begin to reconsider the categories that best inform human transformation and flourishing. If mental healthcare simply “works better,” I may increasingly use mental health vocabulary to describe my problems and their remedies.

Here’s another example that I’ve encountered: An exploration of my family system and my attachment style may empower me to graciously reposition myself and gain new freedom within fraught relationships, whereas before I considered only the resources of personal repentance (Mt 7:3-4), forbearance (Mt 5:38-41), and third-party intervention (Mt 18:15-17) to bring about relational change. If it helps, it helps! And I’ll keep returning to the concepts that help, right?

Here is a question that frames the issue: “When my pain screams at me, shouldn’t I focus primarily on the words, categories, and resources that seem most relevant and bring the greatest relief to my problems?” 

Our compassionate but clear answer must be, “Actually, no.”

Healthcare is wonderful, but there are many issues it cannot address—life’s ultimate meaning, for one. On the other hand, the Scriptures sing of ultimate meaning. And though it may not always relieve our pain, meaning is always directly relevant to our suffering, uniquely answering questions like:

What are human beings, and what are they for?

What is the good life?

What story am I ultimately a part of? 


How have things gone wrong?

Do my pain and suffering mean anything?

What is right with me? 


What is ultimately wrong with me and how can those things be righted?

What anchors my ultimate hopes?

Friends, pain relief is not the meaning of life. And make no mistake: meaninglessness is a painful epidemic all its own, which requires all the resources that our faith uniquely provides to the questions above.

Again, I celebrate the great bounty of mental health wisdom that the Church is continuing to access. But mental health wisdom is a weak, sandy foundation on which to build the house of human flourishing (Mt 7:24-27). By contrast, Christ as God offers his own words as a foundation—a bedrock of meaning that under girds any diagnoses or treatments that help us purposefully journey with Him through this life.

Let’s continue to celebrate mental healthcare, and its vocabulary, however we can! But to simultaneously lose our foundational biblical concepts would be contrary to Jesus Christ’s vision of human flourishing.